Staci Gruber, PhD, is the director of the Cognitive and Clinical Neuroimaging Core and the Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery (MIND) program at McLean Hospital. She is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on the application of neurocognitive models and neuroimaging to better characterize risk factors for substance misuse and psychiatric conditions.
Dr. Gruber studies the impact of cannabis on the brain using neurocognitive, clinical and diagnostic assessments, and multimodal brain imaging techniques. She works to educate policymakers and the general public about the neurobiologic differences between adults and adolescents as well as additional factors that contribute to the impact of cannabis on the brain. In 2014, Dr. Gruber launched MIND, the first program of its kind designed to clarify the specific effects of medical cannabis use on a number of outcome measures.
The MIND program is designed to support a wide range of studies that generate ecologically valid, empirically sound data regarding medical cannabis use. Through these investigations, MIND examines the unique and synergistic effects of cannabis and its constituents to determine the efficacy of cannabinoids for specific conditions and diseases and to clarify the overall impact of cannabinoid-based treatments on physical and mental health.
